Guild Wars 2

Well, I’ve made a video on this topic. I hope it helps some of you guys

This all looks fine on paper, but what you have in this video is the ideal 1v1 situation. Ideal situations come up few and far between in spvp. Thief is still the one of (if not the) easiest class to grasp, with an extremely easy to use builds, low risk with high payoff.

the thief is NOT one of the most easiest classes to grasp. Sorry. And No I will quantify my statement since you didn’t bother either.

rom.9726:

the thief is NOT one of the most easiest classes to grasp. Sorry. And No I will quantify my statement since you didn’t bother either.

My first 80 was an elementalist. Here I am swapping through attuenments.. Trying to keep track of which is on cd and which is not. I need some extra condition removal and healing, water. I need high damage, get into fire. Oh no that melee is to close to me.. I need some control and protection, earth. etc etc etc. Regardless of weapon and spec you are in a constant state of juggling all this stuff around.

Enter the thief…

So last night I feel like making a thief. I go through the tutorial/story area. I hit level 2 and immediately go to spvp. I throw together a dagger/pistol with pistol/pistol spec. I don’t touch a target dummy and go immediately into spvp.

Put on some poison, pop and assassin signet. Spam HS and watch crap die. Start getting hurt and throw down a stealth field. Watch my teammates take them down a notch.. come out of the stealth field and spam HS and watch crap die. Get into a few situations that require ranged, spam unload and watch crap die.

So I have been playing an elementalist since release.. Spvp, wvw, pve.. dungeons.. Trying out every weapon, every spec possible.

First time using a thief… get the highest score I have ever gotten in spvp, first place overall, lots of kills, a single death..

How do you think I feel about my Elementalist now?

And then you learn to dodge

hit the nail on the head Jnaathra.

I tried out thief as well, same story. except i spent a little more time learning the class and holy crap. awesome ranged burst (unload), spammable interrupts, heartseeker flying me to target and dropping insane dps, haste + poison+ thieves guild = O.O.O.O.O.O!!!!
And of course when things go wrong, stealth, stealth, teleport, full initiative again and repeat the wtfpwn.

Let’s see that guy with 50% health who has been fighting an epic battle with another class for the past 30 seconds evade my steal + heartseekers. gimme a break. the class is broken. Even my guildie who mains a thief is trying out other classes because he is convinced they will be nerfed into the ground.

Lewk stop being bad

If you are heartseaker spamming in high level 5v5s you are bad and will not win. Simple as that. You are trying to balance the game around pub hotjoins and Free tournys with 80% pugs.

Any “good” player will know how to counter a scrub HS/PW spammer and more often then not you will find those good players in paid tourneys.

The thief IS strong I agree but is it oped? I would say players lack of skill in the level of play you guys are talking about make it seem OP when it really isn’t.

Yes the Ele has a higher skill requirement to play in sPvP I agree completely. Some classes are just made that way based on the mechanic of the class. Big plays come from better players that know some of the complicated class mechanics the game has. Some of the other mechanics can be complicated in high level play but when you are in hotjoins they seem basic and spammy. I can give examples if you don’t understand this.

What it really comes down too is the fact that if you think a class is overpowered at this point of the game you either:

1. Don’t know the counter for that class yet.
2. Don’t know all the mechanics of your own class.
3. Don’t know the mechanics of the class you think is OP.
4. Just suck and should just accept that the high level players are better then you.

thieves aren’t that hard to counter and end their burst, just gotta learn their abilitites is all. not as op as everyone thinks

Actually I do agree that heartseeker and pistol whip will/should be nerfed.

Not EVERYTHING is as OP as it might seem though!

Highvoltage.7946:

thieves aren’t that hard to counter and end their burst, just gotta learn their abilitites is all. not as op as everyone thinks

NOOOO?! Really?

I guess you can see a pistol whip coming when fighting somebody else or there is something like this :

" Fight 1 – Highvoltage VS Thief – 3 / 2 /1 – FIGHT! " ( Street Fighter music in the background…..)"..

Sorry dude sPvP or tPvP don’t work like this…a thief won’t walk up to you with an invitation to a fight..

Quickness is the problem, not the skills themselves.

Arheundel.6451:

Highvoltage.7946:

thieves aren’t that hard to counter and end their burst, just gotta learn their abilitites is all. not as op as everyone thinks

NOOOO?! Really?

I guess you can see a pistol whip coming when fighting somebody else or there is something like this :

" Fight 1 – Highvoltage VS Thief – 3 / 2 /1 – FIGHT! " ( Street Fighter music in the background…..)"..

Sorry dude sPvP or tPvP don’t work like this…a thief won’t walk up to you with an invitation to a fight..

If you get jumped by any class while you’re fighting someone else, you’re going to die. The game is balanced around teamwork, not 1v1.

now im even more concerned about thieves

Highvoltage.7946:

thieves aren’t that hard to counter and end their burst, just gotta learn their abilitites is all. not as op as everyone thinks

This argument doesn’t work anymore. Against any other class except maybe Mesmer, I can just do my best and I will have a chance against them. But against Thief or maybe Mesmer, I need to take a lesson with the professional or take my time to learn how to counter them; and even though I do learn to counter them, they got tons of disables and escape skills that allow them to get away with pretty much anything and come back with their full combo.

thiefs are so fun…I was on a sPVP team last night with all thiefs and mesmers and we didn’t lose once….such an OP team

The overpowered part is that thief gets to keep his top level mobiliy and escape skills while delivering those damage amounts.

nukularpower.2106:

Quickness is the problem, not the skills themselves.

A thief doesn’t need quickness to kill you. He just spams heartseeker. No need for quickness, with initiative regen skills and the fact that A.Net increased the amount of init, rogues can spam 4-6 heartseekers in a row, and once they are on you, they are perma locked. You can run, dodge, CC anything you like, but they litterally LEAP to you in heartseeker. Its so uncool it makes my head hurt.

Only time I’ve seen a thief bust out quickness is for a) unload or b) pistol whip

My issues with thief:

Stealth:

A thief has more ways to stealth than is neccessary. During healing, skills, traits, and while downing you!! Yes, they do it so often that I almost feel its a class mechanic(( This ability is one of the key components in sPvP that makes thieves superbly overpowered. How can you judge when to use your interrupts or fields, or mists or whatever down skill you have? Being able to see what your opponent is doing while you are on the ground is very critical, and in that way, thieves dominate the ‘downing’ game.

Heartseeker:

This is on the mouth and lips of every class that is not a thief. This skill can almost single-handedly dominate an entire match. With thief CC, once a thief starts in on this skill, it is impossible to avoid. Sure, a dodge roll here, or there if the thief does not CC you porperly, but all in all, this skill is nearly unavoidable and worse, its so strong, it can rip any class, from warrior to mesmer to shreds in seconds.

warp skills: Aside from steal, thieves have port to skills that also make getting away from this class impossible. Combined with their near permanent speed skills and stealth, a thief makes for an overpowered machine that even the simplest dullard can exploit in PvP.

Lastly: Thieves guild. Is it not enough they have the best burst, stealth and movement in game, but now you give them allies? Going against not 1, but 3 of them Seriously, I think you kinda missed the mark on thieves.

In fact, a convo I had with a thief was: Yeah, I normally play elementalist, but I turned thief seeing how easy it was.

People are moving to this class because of its superiority in battle! I wouldn’t mind so much if a thief unloaded his payload on one poor sop and hid to lick his wounds and set up for another fight, but that’s not what they do! They just go form person to person to person, spamming the same two sbilities over and over again and the only way to kill a thief is if you wan keep it from you, or catch it trying to kill someone else. 1v1, you’re toast!!!

Teulux.6732:

Lewk stop being bad

If you are heartseaker spamming in high level 5v5s you are bad and will not win. Simple as that. You are trying to balance the game around pub hotjoins and Free tournys with 80% pugs.

Any “good” player will know how to counter a scrub HS/PW spammer and more often then not you will find those good players in paid tourneys.

The thief IS strong I agree but is it oped? I would say players lack of skill in the level of play you guys are talking about make it seem OP when it really isn’t.

Yes the Ele has a higher skill requirement to play in sPvP I agree completely. Some classes are just made that way based on the mechanic of the class. Big plays come from better players that know some of the complicated class mechanics the game has. Some of the other mechanics can be complicated in high level play but when you are in hotjoins they seem basic and spammy. I can give examples if you don’t understand this.

What it really comes down too is the fact that if you think a class is overpowered at this point of the game you either:

1. Don’t know the counter for that class yet.
2. Don’t know all the mechanics of your own class.
3. Don’t know the mechanics of the class you think is OP.
4. Just suck and should just accept that the high level players are better then you.

HI thief heartseeker!

I have played in BWe’s since the beginning and thieves were underpowered, but not horribly so. A well played thief placed enough pressure that could force back an onslought from the opposing team. They couldn’t dominate a 1v1, or even 2v1 situations, but they still had the ability to push out a lot of burst.

Now, come release. Not only did thieves see a HUGE improvement in burst DPS, the only counter to thief is burst them until they stealth, wait for them to backstab you, then burst again until theuy stealth again and come back with thieves guild and BURST YOU AGAIN. Not only are they highly survivable, but they are highly efficient and can move from one opponent to the next if they aren’t swamped and taken down first.

You can’t root them, stun then, fear them, about all you can do is cripple them, and that only lasts 1-2 secs and they are free to get on your <bleep> and tear you a new one.

I have a ranger, and I play her exclusively in sPvP, and I have taken on 3v1 thieves that didn’t use pistol whip or heartseeker, and although I died, i took them on and it was a fun fight.

Enter the HS spamming thief and I was rooted and downed before the ability wore off. How do you counter that? Stun breakers…yeah, stun breakers DON’T WORK. COndition removal? By the time you can use it, your down. Dodge?? HOW???

You tell me, the counter and I will laugh, because there is no counter.

Another thread about Thieves/Heartseeker. This is absolutely original and constructive to the forums as a whole. There are simply not enough of these.

Zeris.2137:

Another thread about Thieves/Heartseeker. This is absolutely original and constructive to the forums as a whole. There are simply not enough of these.

There’s as many threads as there are thiefs in pvp

Heartseeker doesn’t do much damage, and any thief spamming it is bad. Same goes for those complaining about it.

People are always going to complain about something. It’s the nature of multiplayer games. No one’s ever going to be happy, because there’s no such thing as ‘balance’ in these sorts of games – just varying states of nerfs and un-nerfs.

Lewk.8359:

hit the nail on the head Jnaathra.

I tried out thief as well, same story. except i spent a little more time learning the class and holy crap. awesome ranged burst (unload), spammable interrupts, heartseeker flying me to target and dropping insane dps, haste + poison+ thieves guild = O.O.O.O.O.O!!!!
And of course when things go wrong, stealth, stealth, teleport, full initiative again and repeat the wtfpwn.

Let’s see that guy with 50% health who has been fighting an epic battle with another class for the past 30 seconds evade my steal + heartseekers. gimme a break. the class is broken. Even my guildie who mains a thief is trying out other classes because he is convinced they will be nerfed into the ground.

lol wow, clearly you havent play thief. i think thats apparent by what you wrote about your “experiances” lol

Zeris.2137:

People are always going to complain about something. It’s the nature of multiplayer games. No one’s ever going to be happy, because there’s no such thing as ‘balance’ in these sorts of games – just varying states of nerfs and un-nerfs.

Yeah that’s true. I don’t care for the Op/Up chatter either, but ATM mesmers and thiefs are “everywhere”. So why are they trending? Serious question.

If they aren’t superior then why all of a sudden are those two classes so popular? It wasn’t like that at launch. Just an observation.

You guys realise that just by facing away from the thief and running you will make him miss like 90% of those heartseekers?

1. Stop standing still.
2. Get toughness/vitality.
3. Use some utility skills instead of passive signets.
4. Profit!

Irishbrewed.6537:

Yeah that’s true. I don’t care for the Op/Up chatter either, but ATM mesmers and thiefs are “everywhere”. So why are they trending? Serious question.

If they aren’t superior then why all of a sudden are those two classes so popular? It wasn’t like that at launch. Just an observation.

As far as thieves go, I’m guessing it’s because that certain build is extremely easy to master, while being very powerful against bads. Seeing as this game hasn’t even been out for one month, most of the players are still bad. Add to the fact that this game allows you to jump into PvP in like 5 minutes, and you’ve got your explanation right there.

Mesmers.. I haven’t honestly seen that many of them compared to thieves. I’m guessing it’s because people have seen it being touted as the best 1v1 class, lots of escape options, tankiness and whatnot. However it does require a bit more skill to master, and it’s not exactly an insta-gib class, so I’m guessing not many will stick with it.

Tevesh.1265:

The overpowered part is that thief gets to keep his top level mobiliy and escape skills while delivering those damage amounts.

This.

Obviously the HS and even PW gimmicks are easy enough to counter for non-bads, but it still stands that they can run away to safety after you countered them.

They shouldn’t have the ability to BOTH have huge burst and ALSO run away safely if you manage to counter it.
If they fail it should be my turn to unload 4 digits on their heads not a fight reset.

HS spam will get you killed in any competitive setting. And there’s ways for Sword/Pistol to be viable without relying on Pistol Whip spam. Bottom line is that regardless of the class, if you’re only relying on a single skill, you’re going to be SoL against anyone who can properly counter your attacks. Especially since you’ll have burned the Thief’s iniative pool.

Red Falcon.8257:

They shouldn’t have the ability to BOTH have huge burst and ALSO run away safely if you manage to counter it.
If they fail it should be my turn to unload 4 digits on their heads not a fight reset.

You’re looking at it a bit wrong. Winning doesn’t equal killing. What’s more important, unloading on him or doing the objectives?

1. If you’re defending a node and a thief comes in, you do your bit, he has to escape, you’ve won. And his contribution? Absolutely nothing.

2. If you’re attacking a point he’s deffing, he has to escape, you cap the point, you win. Go back to 1.

I realise the most satisfying accomplishment is stomping his crippled body, but as long as you’re contributing to your team, you’re the one who’s winning and he’s just being an annoyance.

And that’s the big thing. Thieves are certainly not node defenders. At max, they manage 2 v. 1s and that’s it. And if you lose 2 v. 1, it’s mostly because you just got outplayed or the build matchups were poor. Same for when a thief tries to solo a node on the attack. Thieves are roamers. They’re job is to ambush individuals moving towards certain points, sneak caps when people aren’t there, and to move about the battlefield.

But in a lot of cases, they have such good escape abilities because they’ll end up needing to use them if you manage to hold them long enough. If only because of potential HP deficient (since they’re only so durable) or because they’ve lost their ability to control the pace of the battle (ie. they’re starved for initiative and need to use what they have left to retreat and reset). Either way, the node is the more important thing and not the kill.

Jnaathra.6549:

rom.9726:

the thief is NOT one of the most easiest classes to grasp. Sorry. And No I will quantify my statement since you didn’t bother either.

My first 80 was an elementalist. Here I am swapping through attuenments.. Trying to keep track of which is on cd and which is not. I need some extra condition removal and healing, water. I need high damage, get into fire. Oh no that melee is to close to me.. I need some control and protection, earth. etc etc etc. Regardless of weapon and spec you are in a constant state of juggling all this stuff around.

Enter the thief…

So last night I feel like making a thief. I go through the tutorial/story area. I hit level 2 and immediately go to spvp. I throw together a dagger/pistol with pistol/pistol spec. I don’t touch a target dummy and go immediately into spvp.

Put on some poison, pop and assassin signet. Spam HS and watch crap die. Start getting hurt and throw down a stealth field. Watch my teammates take them down a notch.. come out of the stealth field and spam HS and watch crap die. Get into a few situations that require ranged, spam unload and watch crap die.

So I have been playing an elementalist since release.. Spvp, wvw, pve.. dungeons.. Trying out every weapon, every spec possible.

First time using a thief… get the highest score I have ever gotten in spvp, first place overall, lots of kills, a single death..

How do you think I feel about my Elementalist now?

I did pretty much the same thing… at least it feels more rewarding playing an ele? =/

I know this is not really totally related to the topic but just to throw fuel on the fire.

On a scale of 1 to ‘mad and bad’. How mad are you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXB_M3A-0cc

My estimates are most of you are somewhere between ‘wemadbrah’ and ‘weverymad’. I mean c’mon. Most good players KNOW that there’s certain builds for half the classes that work great only against bad players (thieves/warriors especially). So if you’re complaining about those specific builds, that shows everyone just what kind of player you really are.

Those people complaining about ele’s being too hard and thieves being too easy and then swapping to a thief need to learn how to play an ele.
Then spend more time playing sPvP on a thief.

Here’s a tip. There’s a boon called “retaliation” in this wonderful game we play. Learn it. Love it.

My very first 80 was a thief. I enjoyed being able to pistol whip someone into the ground within 2 seconds.
And then i tried the Guardian.
I now enjoy being able to take on 2 thieves at once and down both.

Here’s the lesson boys and girls. If your complaining about classes being too overpowered then your not good enough to make that kind of judgement yet.
Learn to play.

Sneakier.9460:

And then you learn to dodge

and then they heart seeker again and again and again and you die

also thief is one of the easiest classes to play along with warrior in pvp. And remember kids this isn’t your standard mmo where everyones only playing their “main” anyone can take 5 minutes get through the starter area and go play a thief them self. i have one of every class except engi and ele in the mists. The only people who seem to be defending thief are those who ONLY play thief in s/t pvp.

If you know there are a lot of HS spamming thiefs and that is your main concern in spvp why not make a build that can counter it? You can even change utility skills during a match. Out of combat ofc. So if you see a HS theif then equip a extra CC skill or blind or something else useful. After a few failed HS spamms they will be out of initiative and pretty useless.

While this is perfectly normal in these kinda games i still cant believe that ppl still do that.

90% of community are kids/internet tough guys with 0 social interaction beside games and every post starts and ends with “omg noob l2p” or “go play wow this is skill based game”

They cant wait for someone to make post about possible change or improvment to the game so they can say that magic sentence “GW2 is skill based l2p” and by saying that they put themselfs in that “Skilled” players who know how to play.

Its funny

@ OP dont think thief is OP its just more noob friendly then other classes.

“You just don’t know the counter to the class.”

Thieves aren’t dungeon bosses. When was the last time you heard someone say “Oh man, I can’t beat this Elementalist. It’s so fast and deadly. I wish I knew the counter for it.” Same for almost any other class. The only other time I heard this was with the old HB+Frenzy trick in the betas, back when most players were incompetent. And that got nerfed straight into hell. Even if Frenzy still worked the same way and the damage was just as high, the combo would now be considered a joke because people know how limited it is. It freezes you in place, and it’s just one attack with a long cooldown. Heartseeker (and the class in general) has a much worse problem, in that it’s not going to take +50% damage, the skills don’t lock you in place, the damage is just as high if not worse, and there’s no cooldown whatsoever, so if you DO mess up the first try, just keep spamming it.

Make no mistake. The Thief will be nerfed into oblivion, as it should be. You people defending an obviously broken mechanic while complaining about something as ludicrously easy to counter as HB really just need to stop posting, or just do us a favor and stop playing. Just because you CAN counter something doesn’t mean it’s balanced. Again, you are not Lieutenant Kholer. The rest of the game should not be designed around your one move that you MUST watch for like a hawk, or else you die in two seconds. That is not how the game works, nor is it how it should work. For anyone that played GW1, you know what happened to the original Sin builds. Falling Spider indeed. The game isn’t fun when you have a class or build that can kill you in a few seconds if you aren’t treating the other player like a dungeon boss. It WILL be fixed. If you don’t like it, stop playing the game. You obviously don’t belong in it.

it’s nice to see how everyone is completely missing the point about thief

why would i spam heartseeker when i might aswell just do 2k+ dps autoattacking (without quickness) while conserving precious combo points

the overall damage surely is over the top for thief but the single greatest thing about thief is it’s mobility

Its not the damage i hate, its pretty easy to counter bad thieves. And they are generally alround squishy.
The problem i have is with the constant condition resets on the heal with stealth. Its like if a bad thief jumps me and i completely destroy him it wont matter because they will just stealth at low hp and be gone. If i chase where i think they are going i end up getting 2-3vs1’ed.

The condition reset combined with stealth just allows any moron to play that class and get away with being bad.

You will beat a bad thief at some cap point and 10 sec later he is back button 2 spamming in your back while you fight someone else.

Plague.5329:

“You just don’t know the counter to the class.”

Thieves aren’t dungeon bosses. When was the last time you heard someone say “Oh man, I can’t beat this Elementalist. It’s so fast and deadly. I wish I knew the counter for it.” Same for almost any other class.

Yes maybe some some skills need balancing. Not only for thief but for all classes. But let’s be honest HS is not so OP that it always give the thief a instant win and impossible to counter. When looking at thief I would say that sword/pistol skill, can’t remember name, is way worse. The one that stuns you and does some flurry is way harder to deal with then HS.

Spryt.8012:

Plague.5329:

“You just don’t know the counter to the class.”

Thieves aren’t dungeon bosses. When was the last time you heard someone say “Oh man, I can’t beat this Elementalist. It’s so fast and deadly. I wish I knew the counter for it.” Same for almost any other class.

Yes maybe some some skills need balancing. Not only for thief but for all classes. But let’s be honest HS is not so OP that it always give the thief a instant win and impossible to counter. When looking at thief I would say that sword/pistol skill, can’t remember name, is way worse. The one that stuns you and does some flurry is way harder to deal with then HS.

Well not rly, as long as u move its hard to get stuned with that sword/pistol combo. HS is lot worst since he practicly teleport u on target and hit it and has insta cast.

Even tho i have no problems with killing thieves i understand ppl rage. As ranger with thief is just matter of timing, who time his skills better will win. Not sure if other classes can say the same tho.

What is rly anoying with thieves is their mobility. Tons of blinks/invis/blinds makes them impossible to kill if they ever decide to just walk away.

But then again thats what thief is all about. Sneaky fast little kitten so i guess they are fine.

Jnaathra.6549:

rom.9726:

the thief is NOT one of the most easiest classes to grasp. Sorry. And No I will quantify my statement since you didn’t bother either.

My first 80 was an elementalist. Here I am swapping through attuenments.. Trying to keep track of which is on cd and which is not. I need some extra condition removal and healing, water. I need high damage, get into fire. Oh no that melee is to close to me.. I need some control and protection, earth. etc etc etc. Regardless of weapon and spec you are in a constant state of juggling all this stuff around.

Enter the thief…

So last night I feel like making a thief. I go through the tutorial/story area. I hit level 2 and immediately go to spvp. I throw together a dagger/pistol with pistol/pistol spec. I don’t touch a target dummy and go immediately into spvp.

Put on some poison, pop and assassin signet. Spam HS and watch crap die. Start getting hurt and throw down a stealth field. Watch my teammates take them down a notch.. come out of the stealth field and spam HS and watch crap die. Get into a few situations that require ranged, spam unload and watch crap die.

So I have been playing an elementalist since release.. Spvp, wvw, pve.. dungeons.. Trying out every weapon, every spec possible.

First time using a thief… get the highest score I have ever gotten in spvp, first place overall, lots of kills, a single death..

How do you think I feel about my Elementalist now?

So you spammed heartseeker? That’s the absolute worst thing you could do as a dagger thief (other than when they’re 33% or lower). It’s the same damage as autoattacks, and you said you were using pistol offhand so there’s no need to use HS as a gap closer.

Basically you pubstomped bad players and you think the class is op because of that. Stop basing balance claims on sPvP pubstomping. Tournament play – specifically high level tournament play – is the only way to gauge balance, and thieves are not the godmode masters of it. They’re strong roamers, and that’s it.

Further, your whole perspective is from a class that is countered by thieves, specifically the one class that thieves do the best against. Now go try a guardian, warrior or engineer and laugh at the thieves who tickle you as you violate them in mean ways.

One more thing, glass cannon thieves often die to aoe in fights. They have ~15k hp and no toughness. They are the squishiest thing in the game. They have to be played as an assassin, jump in, kill someone, get out. That’s a role in all mmo pvp. Bad players universally complain about classes that fill that role in all games. Good players know how to beat it.

Infuser.9685:

Spryt.8012:

Plague.5329:

“You just don’t know the counter to the class.”

Thieves aren’t dungeon bosses. When was the last time you heard someone say “Oh man, I can’t beat this Elementalist. It’s so fast and deadly. I wish I knew the counter for it.” Same for almost any other class.

Yes maybe some some skills need balancing. Not only for thief but for all classes. But let’s be honest HS is not so OP that it always give the thief a instant win and impossible to counter. When looking at thief I would say that sword/pistol skill, can’t remember name, is way worse. The one that stuns you and does some flurry is way harder to deal with then HS.

Well not rly, as long as u move its hard to get stuned with that sword/pistol combo. HS is lot worst since he practicly teleport u on target and hit it and has insta cast.

Even tho i have no problems with killing thieves i understand ppl rage. As ranger with thief is just matter of timing, who time his skills better will win. Not sure if other classes can say the same tho.

What is rly anoying with thieves is their mobility. Tons of blinks/invis/blinds makes them impossible to kill if they ever decide to just walk away.

But then again thats what thief is all about. Sneaky fast little kitten so i guess they are fine.

Heartseeker is the most telegraphed ability in the entire game… it also has one of the slowest animations (the only thing slower off the top of my head is clusterbomb, which is just silly to compare to though). If you can’t dodge a heartseeker spamming thief your reflexes are not very good.

Thief yust requires buttonmash to do relatively more burst then any other class, BUT once people get higher skillevels, they will know how and when to avoid getting bursted by heartseeker.
Imo the problem will solve itself once people learn more about PvP and buttonmashing wont be enough anymore to kill people.

Infuser.9685:

Well not rly, as long as u move its hard to get stuned with that sword/pistol combo. HS is lot worst since he practicly teleport u on target and hit it and has insta cast.

Both are kind of easy do dodge if you know they are coming. But the stun one usually combined with a shadowstep like steal and before you can react you are dead. Well at least when I am on my Ele. HS on the other hand they need to spam a few times to actually kill you and during that time you still have control of you character.

I am getting tired of thief op threads. This build is not even op, the time it takes you to focus by using the tactic shown on the video the other player has already killed you.

Glory.7625:

Infuser.9685:

Spryt.8012:

Plague.5329:

“You just don’t know the counter to the class.”

Thieves aren’t dungeon bosses. When was the last time you heard someone say “Oh man, I can’t beat this Elementalist. It’s so fast and deadly. I wish I knew the counter for it.” Same for almost any other class.

Yes maybe some some skills need balancing. Not only for thief but for all classes. But let’s be honest HS is not so OP that it always give the thief a instant win and impossible to counter. When looking at thief I would say that sword/pistol skill, can’t remember name, is way worse. The one that stuns you and does some flurry is way harder to deal with then HS.

Well not rly, as long as u move its hard to get stuned with that sword/pistol combo. HS is lot worst since he practicly teleport u on target and hit it and has insta cast.

Even tho i have no problems with killing thieves i understand ppl rage. As ranger with thief is just matter of timing, who time his skills better will win. Not sure if other classes can say the same tho.

What is rly anoying with thieves is their mobility. Tons of blinks/invis/blinds makes them impossible to kill if they ever decide to just walk away.

But then again thats what thief is all about. Sneaky fast little kitten so i guess they are fine.

Heartseeker is the most telegraphed ability in the entire game… it also has one of the slowest animations (the only thing slower off the top of my head is clusterbomb, which is just silly to compare to though). If you can’t dodge a heartseeker spamming thief your reflexes are not very good.

U missed entire point nicely.

I wasn’t talking about dodging ( double tap movment keys ) i was talking about just moving around what will make stun from sword/pistol hard to hit.

And HS is lot easier to hit with then pistol whip. It has faster cast time and also jumps on you so even if u dodge first one he will hit u with 2nd one if he keeps spaming unlike pistol whip which has to be used in combination with steal or infiltrator strike which also takes ur init.

And as i said i dont have any problem with any of those builds , quite frankly i find thieves cookie cutters easy compared to a mesmers.

Also don’t understand how did u concluded that i cant dodge HS, we weren’t even talking about that…

Thieves are an embarrassment to an otherwise good pvp mmo. Anet should be ashamed to let this profession go live as it did. HS spam is a joke. It’s like playing Rift all over again.

Don’t worry, most thieves admit there are stupid easy noob stomping builds that should get the balance treatment. Only the thieves heavily abusing it will say it’s perfectly fine as is.

Remember, there is no smoke without fire (chemistry aside huhu!). If a lot of people are complaining, then there is generally something wrong that at the very least requires the dev attention, either to buff/nerf it or explain clearly how it’s intended to be dealt with by the players.

If the devs say it’s fine as is, then people will seriously start looking at the counters. ANet always has a choice not to buff/nerf anything and just clearly say : deal with it. What they shouldn’t do is ignore the issues altogether.

Anyone that comes on here saying a Thief is underpowered should be bludgeoned to death with nerf bats.

Jnaathra.6549:

rom.9726:

the thief is NOT one of the most easiest classes to grasp. Sorry. And No I will quantify my statement since you didn’t bother either.

My first 80 was an elementalist. Here I am swapping through attuenments.. Trying to keep track of which is on cd and which is not. I need some extra condition removal and healing, water. I need high damage, get into fire. Oh no that melee is to close to me.. I need some control and protection, earth. etc etc etc. Regardless of weapon and spec you are in a constant state of juggling all this stuff around.

Enter the thief…

So last night I feel like making a thief. I go through the tutorial/story area. I hit level 2 and immediately go to spvp. I throw together a dagger/pistol with pistol/pistol spec. I don’t touch a target dummy and go immediately into spvp.

Put on some poison, pop and assassin signet. Spam HS and watch crap die. Start getting hurt and throw down a stealth field. Watch my teammates take them down a notch.. come out of the stealth field and spam HS and watch crap die. Get into a few situations that require ranged, spam unload and watch crap die.

So I have been playing an elementalist since release.. Spvp, wvw, pve.. dungeons.. Trying out every weapon, every spec possible.

First time using a thief… get the highest score I have ever gotten in spvp, first place overall, lots of kills, a single death..

How do you think I feel about my Elementalist now?

This is the exact same experience I’ve had. I actually had a guild member whining how under powered his thief was, so I shelved my elementalist and ran a thief for a few tourney’s, I went from being mid place each match as my elementalist, (which I played extensively in beta, over 70 tournaments since life, lots of wvw and level 80 pve with 80% completion)… to being top score in every game as a thief having only played a thief once before in beta.

I’m not a so arrogant to think I know it all, but I really feel this is not an l2p situation, and I’d gladly provide vids that I record daily to review my performance to anyone that wishes to critique to reinforce that point. Switching to the thief I just completely facerolled with FAR less actual skill required.

And dodging btw, is marvelous in theory, until you’re immobilized or stunned with your 75 second stun breaker on cooldown. How about when a thief comes at you, so you dodge as you’ve been told to do, you roll back, hit some defensives, they stealth and pop on you again, you dodge again, now you’re out of stamina, NOW they hit their immobilize for 4 seconds, flip behind you and backstab away then finish with HS and as a FULL vit/toughness spec elementalist you are dead or near it before the immobilize even ends.

Unsurvivable burst from ANY class when you are built as tanky as you possibly can be, and giving up damage to be so, is simply not fun.